Topics in Design History Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course is an introduction to the historical evolution of design. It explores a variety of key topics in communication design, including the development of design for different communicative media across varying historical and cultural models. The course will cover the origins of typography and printing, starting from early histories of mass media production, focussing on how communication design has been impacted by political, social and economic factors around the world. Students will then consider how topics in design history relate to other visual and material cultures, including product design, architecture and the visual arts. 

Teaching and learning will exploit local resources, and these could include (but are not limited to) the St Bride’s Library collection (the largest graphic design library in the world), as well as historic design collections at the Design Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Lectures will investigate theory and practice from feminist design and art and design from the Global South, as a way of encouraging students to look to ‘the canon’ and beyond from alternative perspectives. The course is intended to give future practitioners a foundation in design histories that can underpin more sustainable and ethical design practices for the future.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include: 

A minimum of 36 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the College’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback is provided on summative assessment and is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books 

• Meggs, Phillip. (2016). History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons.
• Levit, Briar. (2021). Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History. Chronicle Books.
• Mareis, Claudia, & Paim, Nina. (2021). Design struggles: intersecting histories, pedagogies, and perspectives. Valiz.
• Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. United Kingdom: Duke University Press.
• Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. The MIT Press.

Journals

• Baseline (Britain)
• Print magazine (USA)
• Eye magazine (Britain)
• CA Communication Arts (USA
• Graphis (Switzerland)
• Journal of Design History (UK)

Electronic Resources

• VLE
• Behance
• Dezeen

Indicative Topics

Students will study the following topics: 

• Critical media theory and communication design
• Design and political history
• Mass media in design history
• Alternative histories of design
• Connections to other art and design media